


The Kitchen at Number Twelve

by jedusaur



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Betrayal, Food, Friendship, Gen, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-28
Updated: 2009-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:51:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedusaur/pseuds/jedusaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The damage is already done; there's nothing Remus can do about it now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kitchen at Number Twelve

Remus creeps out of the fire carefully and stops, making sure the coast is clear before he ventures from the fireplace into the vast, dark kitchen. He can't see anything for a moment, because the only light in the room is coming from the flames he's just left. Then, slowly, his eyes adjust to the dimness and he sees Sirius perched on a bench in front of the table.

"Move it, Moony, or James'll crash into your ass on his way out," he whispers. Remus comes forward to sit next to him, just in time for James to appear in the fire, spinning around and around and then stepping skillfully out onto the hearth.

He looks around, blinking, getting used to the sparse light. His gaze wanders from the huge oak table to the well-stocked pantry to the archway opening onto an impressive front hall and solid staircase leading up into blackness. "This place is bloody amazing, Padfoot!" he declares.

Sirius grins widely, a grin Remus knows no one could have elicited from him but James. "Shush, you dolt," he says easily.

A short, stubby figure in the fire, the last to arrive, trips on a log and sprawls abruptly across the floor, scattering ashes everywhere. Sirius and James ignore him, as usual. Remus kneels to help him up. Peter lifts his head and rubs his nose, which is starting to bleed from the impact. "Ow," he complains.

"Shut up!" says Sirius fiercely. "D'you want to wake up my parents?"

Remus thinks this a bit out of line, considering his mild reaction to James only a moment before, but he doesn't say anything. Remus has learned that the less often he questions Sirius, the more attention Sirius pays him when he does speak up. He heals Peter's nose, enjoying the sense of freedom he still derives from doing magic outside Hogwarts.

James is poking around the pantry, muttering to himself. "Ooh, biscuits. Chocolate ones, even. And fudge. Oh, look, Padfoot, can I have a bit of this?" He holds aloft his prize: a cream pie with only one slice cut out. Sirius takes it from him and rummages around in a drawer, emerging with four forks. He distributes them and the four of them crowd around the table, digging in.

"Won't your mum notice it's gone?" asks Remus, the only one who ever cares about such things. Sirius shrugs, his mouth too occupied with the pie to bother answering. Remus gives up and takes a bite. The damage is already done, he reasons. There's nothing he can do about it now.

James and Sirius argue for a while about whether or not to go upstairs to see Sirius's room, and Sirius eventually wins. "We're lucky that damn house-elf hasn't woken up just from this. If my parents notice we're here..." Sirius trails off darkly. "Now you've seen it like you wanted to. Let's go."

Sirius pushes James forward first, then tosses in a handful of Floo powder himself. Peter nearly trips again, trying to get to the fire next and avoid being left alone in the house. Remus is the last to step into the fire, watching the kitchen spin out of sight.

***

Everything is fine, Remus tells himself, sitting tensely at the giant oak table. Stop overthinking things. James and Lily and Harry are perfectly safe. Relax.

It doesn't work.

He looks across the table to Peter, who is staring at his toast. It's not like Peter to leave food untouched, and he's sweating just a bit more than usual. He meets Remus's eyes briefly, then returns his gaze to his plate. Remus glances over at Sirius, who hasn't stopped pacing the room for twenty minutes. What's wrong? Why is he so restless? Is he expecting something to happen?

Stop overthinking things, he commands himself again. Everyone is nervous. We're in the middle of a war, for Merlin's sake. They have a right to act a little odd.

Peter takes a bite of toast, and Sirius sits down, and Remus feels a little bit better.

Sirius's rear has barely hit the bench when he bounces back up again. Remus tries nostalgia. "Remember when James disappeared for a whole weekend back in seventh year, and I was worried out of my mind but couldn't say anything because I didn't want to get him in trouble, and it turned out he and Lily had gotten a room at the inn in Hogsmeade? He'd just been snogging, that was all." He flashes a weak smile at Sirius. "And you knew about it the whole time, but you were having too much fun watching me pull my hair out over it to tell me."

Peter sets down his now-cold toast. "It's not funny, Remus. This isn't school. This is war."

He's right, and Remus feels young, to have been put in his place by Peter of all people. He was just trying to lighten the mood a bit. But all he's done is increase the tension in the room.

Sirius is looking at him oddly. "Remus," he says, and Remus can't remember the last time Sirius called him that instead of Moony, "Remus, are you trying to say something? Because if you know anything and you're not telling us..."

"No!" Remus says quickly. "No, not at all." Normally, when he looks this miserable, Sirius would come over to him, maybe touch his arm, and that small comfort would help Remus cope. But no one trusts anyone anymore, and Sirius resumes pacing. Remus hugs himself, placing his own hand where he imagines Sirius's. He feels cold and alone. Peter and Sirius are there, but they aren't with him anymore, not like they were that night when the four of them crept in here to steal pie.

Sirius stops in front of the fire. "My parents will be back soon. We've got to leave." He grasps a handful of powder.

"Where are you going?" asks Remus.

Sirius shrugs. He throws the powder in the fire, steps in, and mumbles his destination in a pointedly muffled voice neither Remus nor Peter can understand. The fire whips him out of sight.

Peter stands up from the table, leaving his toast. "Where are you going?" Remus asks again, dully, not expecting an answer. He doesn't get one.

Remus considers the toast. Eventually, he leaves it behind for Sirius's parents to find. It doesn't matter now whether they know someone's been there. The damage has been done, and there's nothing Remus can do about it.

He doesn't know where he's going, but he steps into the fire.

***

"Moony," says Sirius from the doorway.

Remus looks up and smiles. "Good to see you."

"You, too. Am I going to miss you if I blink?"

Remus turns back to his bowl of stew, pretending he doesn't know what Sirius is talking about. "Molly told me a spell for reheating this without burning it, but I'm afraid I've forgotten-"

"You haven't stayed more than five minutes since the last official Order meeting," interrupts Sirius. He crosses the room and sits on the bench next to Remus, waiting for a response.

Remus gives up on remembering the spell and takes a bite of cold stew. He tries to think of something to say.

"I've been cooped up in here for months, Moony. I'm going insane."

And that's the reason, isn't it? Sirius is going insane, and Remus is a little bit scared to be around him. Not that Sirius would hurt him. Remus knows that would never happen. But if Severus made a jibe at him and Sirius took that as an excuse, Remus knows he would see it as his fault. Or if the house-elf's mutterings got out of hand and Sirius lost control... Remus can see it happening, and he doesn't want to see it actually happening.

"Please, Moony." Sirius doesn't sound dangerous now, only sad and alone. Remus remembers that feeling, back in the middle of the war when they all knew someone had to be carrying news to the Dark Lord and no one knew who it was, no one had the sense to figure out that the rat was the rat. Remus melts a little (Sirius always did know how to do that, didn't he?) and turns to embrace his old friend.

Sirius squeezes him tightly, nearly crushing him, and Remus wonders if anyone else has touched him since the last time they hugged. Probably not, he thinks, and squeezes Sirius just as tightly. He feels terrible about leaving Sirius here in this musty old place for days and weeks and months on end, but it's not his decision. The damage has been done. There's nothing he can do about it.

"Sirius. I'm sorry, but I have to go."

Sirius draws back, and Remus sees a flash of anger in his eyes before he covers it with a relaxed, uncaring expression. Remus touches his arm, trying to comfort him, saying he'll be back soon. Sirius jerks away and retreats to his room.

Remus, frustrated, steps into the fire.

***

Remus sits alone at the table, forehead in his hands, elbows propping him up. A glass of wine sits in front of him, but he hasn't touched it. He doesn't want to be able to blame alcohol for his feelings.

James is gone, years gone, memories already blending into one another. Remus wants to think he couldn't have done anything to save him, but hindsight is too clear. There were so many hints, so many clues he should have noticed, so many signs that Peter had gone astray. No one ever paid much attention to little Peter; no one except Remus, and Remus should have seen it happening and forestalled it. He was the only one who could have.

Peter is gone; perhaps not yet dead, Remus doesn't know, but gone nonetheless. He wants to think he couldn't have done anything to save him, but he was Peter's closest friend during those crucial adolescent years. He must have been able to do something. Surely, had he spent more time with Peter, listened to him, helped him become a true Marauder instead of just their little tagalong, surely he could have stopped it happening.

And now Sirius is gone, too, gone behind a veil in the middle of a battle he should never have been fighting in. Remus wants nothing more desperately than to believe that he had no part in Sirius's death, but the guilt is too strong. Remus knew Sirius better than anyone else on the planet, and Remus knew he couldn't stay in the house forever. But instead of helping him, instead of appealing to Dumbledore, instead of staying there with Sirius night and day as he's always known he should, he ran. Remus tried to hide from the person he knew Sirius was, and now that person, full of spirit and adventure and drive, is dead.

The Marauders have vanished, one by one. Remus digs his fingernails into the tabletop, assuring himself that he himself has not yet faded into nothing like the ghosts that crowd his mind.

Now Remus has a wife and a child. He has to go home and take care of his family and be a responsible adult. But Remus has other responsibilities, duties he took on years before he met Tonks or considered the possibility of becoming a father.

For years, Remus has been telling himself that there's nothing he can do. Now the damage has been done, and Remus knows what he has to do.

He steps into the fire.

***

It's late evening, and the sun is setting over Grimmauld Place. The light from the hall window wanes, casting eerie shadows across the kitchen for no one to see.

The great oak table is empty. There is no pie, no toast, no stew, no wine. The benches surrounding it are empty as well.

And the fire is out.


End file.
